Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
North and South cover art

North and South

By: Elizabeth Gaskell
Narrated by: Clare Wille
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £22.00

Buy Now for £22.00

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Wives and Daughters cover art
Middlemarch cover art
North and South cover art
Jane Eyre cover art
Mary Barton cover art
Cousin Phillis cover art
Ruth cover art
Persuasion cover art
David Copperfield cover art
Great Expectations cover art
Cranford cover art
Mansfield Park cover art
Daniel Deronda cover art
The Woman in White cover art
Into the Wilderness cover art
The Mill on the Floss cover art

Summary

When Margaret Hale moves with her father from the comfort of the south of England to the industrial north, she is at first repulsed by what she sees; and then when she discovers the conditions under which the workers are forced to live, she is outraged. But this throws her into direct conflict with the powerful young mill-owner, John Thornton. Using personal passions to explore deep social divisions, North and South is a great romance and one of Elizabeth Gaskell's finest works.

Public Domain (P)2010 Naxos Audiobooks

What listeners say about North and South

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    26
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    18
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    24
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great example of woman empowerment

If you could sum up North and South in three words, what would they be?

Strength, tolerance, wisdom

What was one of the most memorable moments of North and South?

For me it's about the overall story.

Which character – as performed by Clare Wille – was your favourite?

None, they were all interesting

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It certainly made me think

Any additional comments?

I didn't think I would find such dept in a book from this era, yet it's way more open-minded and multi layered than most of today's productions.
The simple opening theme, the fact that the father of the main character has not a crisis of faith but an unbearable disillusion towards his church, and how practically this news is taken from his daughter who simply endeavours to help as much as she can in all the arrangements that ensue, is more advanced than the pointless drama that we would surely see in a novel written in our days.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Change from country life to hard, industrial life

Changes a close family experience moving from comfortable,rural living to a raw, unfamiliar,industrial hardship. Rather long winded but one feels the realities of the move from the rural South to the manufacturing, industrial North. Likeable characters and brilliantly read by Clare Wille.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Such a wonderful book, brought to life

I have loved his book for many years. Willie'# narration is fantastic. Love, love, love

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A new favourite

Clare Wille is an excellent narrator, bringing to life a myriad of different characters so persuasively in this thoughtful, enjoyable novel. Her interpretation of feeling likewise is superb.

One of my favourite novels, one of my favourite narrations!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Lovely the story but annoying reader.

This book is one of my favorites as Gaskell's novels always are, and in the beginning I enjoyed the book.

However, when the narrator endeavored to portray Nicholas Higgins voice, sometimes developing into quite long passages, due to the characters frequent and long but actually very interesting 'rants', it ultimately became impossible to continue listening. What is worse, this 'voice' spread itself to other characters further on in the book.

The northern (?) accent the narrator attempted was perhaps plausible, I am not the best judge of that, but it was surely not necessary to spit out each word in such a manner that one could imagine the pages of the narrators copy taking quite a bit of damage from the excessive amount of saliva they were probably exposed to.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful